Arizona’s Charter Schools

Arizona tops nation in number of charters.

If you’ve never heard of charter schools, you haven’t lived in Arizona very long. The Grand Canyon state has about 270 of these publicly funded, privately run schools, more than any other state in the nation.

From high-tech to back-to-basics to performing arts, charter schools offer parents and students a wide range of classes, learning methods and discipline styles. And it’s all free because charter schools are public.

Charter schools were designed to give parents more choices for their child’s education. By law, charters, unlike other public schools, also are required to improve student achievement.

A Goldwater Institute analysis of reading and math test scores in Arizona attests that when parents choose, students succeed. All children, not just a select few, deserve educational opportunity.

The Center for Educational Opportunity continues the Goldwater Institute’s tradition of advancing innovative policy solutions to ensure all students in Arizona enjoy educational freedom and opportunity. Director Vicki Murray writes and commissions numerous scholarly reports and widely disseminates this intellectual ammunition throughout local and national media outlets. Broad areas of research include expansion of charter schools, education tax credits and vouchers, and the regulatory climate for alternative and independent schools.

The center offers parents several tips for choosing a good charter school for their child. Among then:

Ask what the school expects of parents and students and attend a governing board meeting.

Review teacher qualifications. Teachers in charter schools are not required to be certified or hold college degrees.

Ask for a sample report card and transcript and for policies on discipline, attendance, grading, dress codes, complaints and medication.

As in all of Arizona’s public schools, students in charter schools will eventually be required to pass a standards test, called AIMS, in order to graduate. To ensure their child is learning what he or she should, parents should review a copy of the Arizona Academic Standards and graduation requirements.

To review a copy of the Arizona Academic Standards and graduation requirements, call the state Department of Education at 602-542-5393.

Basis Charter School is alone in its class

Basis charter schools may offer the best free education in the U.S. but applying the formula to public schools may not work

No schools in Arizona have achieved the kind of national status that Basis charter schools have. In May, Newsweek magazine named Basis School Inc.’s high school in Tucson the third-best in the country.

Earlier in November, Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett and his wife, Barbara, donated $450,000 to Basis Scottsdale middle school, citing its excellence. In a state worried about its educational quality, Basis School Inc. should be a powerful guide. But can Basis be replicated in other public schools? A close look at the 560-student system indicates that the proposition would be difficult at best. Even its founders concur.

Basis’ relentlessly rigorous curriculum inspires parents and leaders and could set a standard for how to educate intelligent, motivated students. But it doesn’t live with the same academic challenges that most other public schools face. Like those schools, Basis’ high school and two middle schools are funded mostly with state and federal money. It must accept any student who applies if there is space, and its students must master state standards and pass the AIMS exit exam. The similarities end there.

Basis offers few of the typical public-school extras, such as football or cheerleading. It strives to winnow students to only the high achievers: Beginning in sixth grade, it gives kids a final test and holds them back if they fail twice. (Any public school can do this, but it’s rare, state officials say.) Most of its students are ambitious children of engineers, attorneys and doctors, kids willing to hammer through math, science, history and literature courses years beyond their academic peers.

Only 10 percent of its students are minorities. None is an English-language learner. Few are low-income or have special-education needs. What Basis offers is a free stripped-down elite education inside bland commercial buildings. It has the complexion and tenor of the best private schools but paid for with taxpayer money.”We do for middle-class kids what public schools are designed to do: transform their lives,” said retired Professor Michael Block, who opened Basis with his wife, Olga, in 1998. “We don’t solve all problems. We do a certain thing. We do it well.”